The Malaysian Insight

NAJIB Razak will today either walk free or be told to enter his defence in the SRC International Sdn Bhd trial on charges of misappropriating RM42 million from the former 1Malaysia Development Bhd subsidiary.

Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali will deliver his oral judgment this morning on whether the prosecution has successfully established a prima facie case against the former prime minister.

Should the 66-year-old be ordered to enter his defence, he can either keep silent, make an unsworn statement from the dock or give sworn testimony from the witness stand, after which he will be cross-examined by prosecutors.

Should the trial be allowed to continue into its second phase, hearings dates have been fixed from December 3 to 19.

The high court, on October 22 and 23, heard submissions from both the defence, led by lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, and prosecution, headed by Attorney-General Tommy Thomas.

Thomas submitted that Najib could not deny knowledge of the RM42 million that entered his accounts, and said the former finance minister would have to explain the more than 100 cheques issued from two of his personal AmBank accounts despite him earning less than RM1 million a year at the time.

Deputy public prosecutor V. Sithambaram argued that Najib should have lodged a police report if he was innocent, and that he failed to sue AmBank for allowing unauthorised transactions involving his personal accounts.

“If you are the prime minister of a country, and if somebody banked RM42 million into your accounts, I think any normal person would lodge a police report and have the matter investigated. But nothing of the sort happened,” he said during the prosecution’s oral submission.

The defence responded by saying Najib did not lodge a report in relation to the RM42 million credited into his accounts because investigations into SRC International were already under way by mid-2015.

The prosecution’s case in the SRC International trial saw 57 witnesses testifying over 57 days between April 3 and August 27.

During the trial, the prosecution tendered more than 750 exhibits, including bank documents relating to Najib’s accounts, cash transactions, meeting minutes and Blackberry Messenger chats on the former prime minister’s transactions.

The charges in the case are linked to RM4 billion in loans issued to SRC International from Retirement Fund Inc in 2011 and 2012, for which Najib is accused of receiving RM42 million in his accounts in 2014 and 2015.

He has been charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust, three counts of money-laundering and one count of power abuse.

Najib faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment upon conviction. – November 11, 2019.